In my earlier post about the final collapse of the White House vandalism ruse, I wrote that the real story was how the majors had buried the story of the GSA Report or not reported it at all.
Now the Post website has rectified that lapse by posting this story by Charles Babington in which he reports the GSA findings and writes:
Many news organizations, including The Washington Post, reported on the alleged vandalism shortly after President Bush took office in January. The Post and other outlets soon raised doubts about the claims, and also reported on Bush’s statement that the allegations were false.
Honestly, that run-down comes up a bit short. The Post ran several stories pushing the phony vandalism stories and, if memory serves me right, a number of editorials similarly peddling the unfounded, and now disproven, misinformation.
The Post did run one quite good piece by John F. Harris on January 27th which chronicled the beginnings of the climb-down by the Bushies and the press (“White House Scales Back Prank Reports”).
But to the best of my knowledge the Post has never commented on what seems like the real story here: how the Bush White House played the press with anonymous leaks and preyed upon their credulousness about any and all forms of Clintonite wrongdoing.
But the Post can at least look down on the Times — which has yet to even mention the GSA story (at least online).
